Legal action planned over care

Two NHS hospitals are facing legal action from families who say their relatives were not properly cared for.

Queen’s Hospital in Romford, Essex, and the Eastbourne District Hospital in East Sussex are the two hospitals at the centre of the planned action.

It is being taken by 18 families, which say their relatives suffered neglect and poor standards of care at such a low level that it breached the Human Rights Act.

Human rights lawyer with the legal firm Leigh, Day and Co, Ms Emma Jones, said the patients involved were left without hydration, had not been fed and missed medication.

She added: “There are many care issues and we’re talking about people that are often quite elderly, they are vulnerable. I can understand completely why relatives of their loved ones would believe that such poor treatment and care might have contributed to their loved one’s death.”

The action comes after the publication of the report on the inquiry into the Mid-Staffordshire scandal, where standards of care were described as shocking.

Ms Jones represented 119 families over the events at Mid-Staffordshire.

The Care Quality Commission had criticised standards at Queen’s in October 2011 but the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust - which is responsible for the hospital – said it had made improvements, though acknowledged that more needs to be done.

A spokesman for the East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “We continue to strive to improve outcomes and experience for our patients by listening to what they tell us and acting on it.”